Mt. Rushmore
OK, we went to Mount Rushmore, as a few of you know. It's only a 6+ hour drive from here. Not too bad. We took LOTS of pictures (about 150). I'll post just the best 18...yeah, 18...Summer is home from daycare again today...will get to that story later, too...Without further babbling, here are the pictures.
First and Foremost...you can find MILLIONS of pictures of Mount Rushmore on the web and other places...but here's our main look at it...this is why we went on the trip...to see an awesome American Monument.
It's a quick drive. 75mph speed limit most of the way. That's what you get when you go through the empty west. There are a lot of small towns, but none smaller than Lost Springs...
Yeah, population of only one...yikes. How'd (s)he even get the city incorporated and get their own sign? Hmmm...Anyway, it was not tourist season when we got to Keystone, the place we stayed, about 5 minutes from the monument. Mt. Rushmore is open year round, except Christmas day, but many/MOST other places are closed. We'll have to go back someday. Keystone in the off season is just about a ghost town!
There were some people here and there, but it was basically empty, which we liked. No crowds. Yay! We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express and there were plenty of families there, all enjoying the ease of getting around, I'm sure. We had a nice room, with plenty of room to set up Summer's Pack-n-Play, and room for Summer to scoot around and have a blast.
So, after we got there Friday night, we got a good nights sleep. We woke up, had breakfast and headed on out to see the Mountain. What was really neat is for only 8 dollars you get to park, and that's the only cost, and to make that even better, that one car pass is usable through the entire year for that car. So, we could go back in the Summer when there are more people and more open shops/sites to see and go to the mountain again for free!
Well, I went to Mt. Rushmore when I was about 8 yeards old. I don't remember much from it, but my mom says we went with Cousin Mike. So, that was probably pretty cool. I don't remember what the park was like, but what is cool is the walk of flags leading to the monument.
And here are a few more shots from the park:
Summer started getting sleepy and we saw what we wanted, so we headed out. Jess saw on the map that there are three tunnels cut into the mountains that point directly towards Mt. Rushmore. So, we went on those roads to see what that looked like. And here is the third one...as we approached.
As you can see they are single lane tunnels. Again, it turned out great that it was off season, as we passed maybe 4 or 5 cars on this road. Much easier now than during the busy season. It was so empty it allowed us to stop in the middle of the road and take this picture from the middle of the tunnel.
So, we got to through the last tunnel and we had to decide to just backtrack or keep going. We wanted to check out Rapid City, which was maybe 10 or more extra miles if we didn't turn around. We decided we had nothing but time and Summer was still sleeping, so we just kept going. Thank goodness we did. About 20 minutes later Jessica kept saying she wanted to see some wild buffalo...but, what we came across made us laugh...and that woke up Summer. And when we showed Summer why we were laughing she just stared:
Well, what Summer was looking at was this!
Yeah, that's right, WILD DONKEYS!!!
There were a few cars stopped here, as the donkeys approach they try to get food. There were about a dozen of them all told.
After getting to Rapid City, eating lunch and all that we headed back to Keystone to take a walk. In our walk we got a few photo ops for Summer. Here she is sitting on a barrel.
In addition to the barrel there were a few horses. One coin operated one and this old fashioned one. Did Summer think of her horse back home?
And here she is still on the horse, but more of a close up of her.
And the LAST picture to share from the trip is Summer sitting on a Mine car.
OK, that was our trip.
First and Foremost...you can find MILLIONS of pictures of Mount Rushmore on the web and other places...but here's our main look at it...this is why we went on the trip...to see an awesome American Monument.
It's a quick drive. 75mph speed limit most of the way. That's what you get when you go through the empty west. There are a lot of small towns, but none smaller than Lost Springs...
Yeah, population of only one...yikes. How'd (s)he even get the city incorporated and get their own sign? Hmmm...Anyway, it was not tourist season when we got to Keystone, the place we stayed, about 5 minutes from the monument. Mt. Rushmore is open year round, except Christmas day, but many/MOST other places are closed. We'll have to go back someday. Keystone in the off season is just about a ghost town!
There were some people here and there, but it was basically empty, which we liked. No crowds. Yay! We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express and there were plenty of families there, all enjoying the ease of getting around, I'm sure. We had a nice room, with plenty of room to set up Summer's Pack-n-Play, and room for Summer to scoot around and have a blast.
So, after we got there Friday night, we got a good nights sleep. We woke up, had breakfast and headed on out to see the Mountain. What was really neat is for only 8 dollars you get to park, and that's the only cost, and to make that even better, that one car pass is usable through the entire year for that car. So, we could go back in the Summer when there are more people and more open shops/sites to see and go to the mountain again for free!
Well, I went to Mt. Rushmore when I was about 8 yeards old. I don't remember much from it, but my mom says we went with Cousin Mike. So, that was probably pretty cool. I don't remember what the park was like, but what is cool is the walk of flags leading to the monument.
And here are a few more shots from the park:
Summer started getting sleepy and we saw what we wanted, so we headed out. Jess saw on the map that there are three tunnels cut into the mountains that point directly towards Mt. Rushmore. So, we went on those roads to see what that looked like. And here is the third one...as we approached.
As you can see they are single lane tunnels. Again, it turned out great that it was off season, as we passed maybe 4 or 5 cars on this road. Much easier now than during the busy season. It was so empty it allowed us to stop in the middle of the road and take this picture from the middle of the tunnel.
So, we got to through the last tunnel and we had to decide to just backtrack or keep going. We wanted to check out Rapid City, which was maybe 10 or more extra miles if we didn't turn around. We decided we had nothing but time and Summer was still sleeping, so we just kept going. Thank goodness we did. About 20 minutes later Jessica kept saying she wanted to see some wild buffalo...but, what we came across made us laugh...and that woke up Summer. And when we showed Summer why we were laughing she just stared:
Well, what Summer was looking at was this!
Yeah, that's right, WILD DONKEYS!!!
There were a few cars stopped here, as the donkeys approach they try to get food. There were about a dozen of them all told.
After getting to Rapid City, eating lunch and all that we headed back to Keystone to take a walk. In our walk we got a few photo ops for Summer. Here she is sitting on a barrel.
In addition to the barrel there were a few horses. One coin operated one and this old fashioned one. Did Summer think of her horse back home?
And here she is still on the horse, but more of a close up of her.
And the LAST picture to share from the trip is Summer sitting on a Mine car.
OK, that was our trip.
posted by Erick and Jess @ 11:35 AM
1 Comments:
At 10:39 PM,
Anonymous said…
Fantastic pictures! The wild donkeys literally made me laugh out loud. Looks like you guys enjoyed a great trip. :D
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